It's a Long Way to the Top
by NewObsession
Summary: Or - Five times Felicity tried to use the salmon ladder (because she wants to be one of the cool kids!), and the one time she nailed it (because she's badass!).


So this little plot bunny inserted itself into my brain after reading a few fics about Felicity and the salmon ladder (sorry guys! I can't remember whose story it was but they were really good). And then the show took the turn it did and I feel like there's just not enough Felicity at the moment. And on that note – this story is more Felicity centric than any pairing (such as Olicity – coz that's the way I roll!) because the show just isn't giving me any feelings right now.

Anyway I hope you enjoy this little take on Felicity's attempts at the salmon ladder – and I apologise for all the tense changes. I've never been good at that! And no beta - so all mistakes are mine (feel free to point them out to me!)

**Disclaimer:** Sadly, don't own Arrow and all its awesome characters.

**Spoilers:** Nothing obvious, though I have watched up to 2x19 so you may read something that you don't know about…

* * *

"I'm done!"

Felicity threw up her hands as she walked away from Sara and the training mats. She grabbed the towel on her desk and ran it over her dripping face and chest, catching as much sweat as she could, while simultaneously downing half of her bottle of water.

"Come on, we only just started." Sara laughed as she remained where she was, holding her bo-staff loosely in one hand.

"And you've already put me on the floor three times. Thank you, you've helped me realise I'm never going to be able to do this. Especially the way you guys can." Felicity motioned around the empty basement so as to indicate who she was talking about and threw her towel onto the table. "I think I'll just stick with what I'm good at." Felicity patted her nearby computers affectionately.

"It takes practice, Felicity." Sara explained, walking towards her blonde friend. "It took me years to get to where I am, Oliver was stranded on an island for 5 years and Dig was in the army. The ability to fight doesn't just come to anyone overnight."

Felicity sighed. "I know. But I just thought that always being around people that could do this stuff, I would have picked up some technique. Like osmosis, you know?"

Sara laughed again as she came to stand in front of Felicity. "I don't think it works that way. Come on, I want you to try one more thing."

"Nuh uh." Felicity shook her head as she saw where Sara was pointing. "There's no way, Sara. Besides Oliver would kill me."

"Okay, he probably wouldn't _kill_ me, but yell at me sure." Felicity corrected as she saw Sara's incredulous look.

"Ollie wouldn't yell at you." Now it was Felicity's turn to be incredulous. "Well about this anyway. He might be shocked at first, but then I think he'd be really proud."

Felicity eyed the salmon ladder warily. "Sara, you just witnessed how much I failed miserably on the mats. I'm not doing the ladder. Even Dig doesn't do the ladder, and he's probably just as strong as Oliver."

"Trust me, Dig wants to have a go at it but he is probably avoiding it so he's not on the receiving end of that look Ollie gets. He can be a bit… possessive."

"Oh yeah, I know that look." Felicity quickly agreed. "But see, right there. You just proved my point. Oliver wouldn't want me on the ladder."

Sara shrugged. "He might _think_ that, but it will only be for all of two seconds. You've gone toe to toe with him on worse. I'm sure you can handle it. Besides he's not even here, he won't know."

Sara moved behind Felicity, placing her hands on her shoulders so she could push her towards the salmon ladder.

"Come on, enough about Ollie. Sure, he installed the ladder but he doesn't own it. It's a great exercise, you should try it."

Felicity planted her feet, stopping herself from being propelled forward any further. "Sara this is a bad idea."

"You don't know that." Sara disagreed. "You have to give it a go. If you don't at least try, you'll never know if you can do it."

"I am _positive_ that I can't do it. Have you seen me?" Felicity turned in Sara's hold and indicated her slim, muscle-less body.

"Felicity." Sara sighed, though it didn't have the same effect that Oliver's use of her name usually had.

"No." Felicity sharply shook her head as she stalked off to the bathroom to shower and change.

* * *

"Ha. Take that!"

Felicity grinned as she got through another 'secure' website and downloaded the information that Oliver needed to take down someone else.

After a few minutes, Felicity had everything she needed and after retracing her steps to ensure no one would know she had been in there, she sat back in her chair with a triumphant look on her face. It was still early, not even 8pm so Oliver was still out on patrol, just looking for trouble as Felicity had so nicely pointed out before he left. Sara was upstairs working and Dig had taken the night off because he had a date with Lyla. She wasn't exactly sure where Roy was, but assumed he was with Thea and just hadn't wanted to reveal that to the overprotective big brother. He had left around 6 o'clock and not given an explanation as to where he was going. This left Felicity all alone in the basement, weaving her magic on the net while she waited for Oliver to return.

As Felicity glanced around the room, her eyes landed on the nearby salmon ladder in front of her. She thought back to a few days ago when Sara had been pushing her, literally, to have a go at it. Felicity idly wondered if she would have enough strength to tackle such an exercise.

"Don't be ridiculous Felicity." Felicity mumbled to herself as she shook her head and returned to her screens. But not a minute later, Felicity glanced back to the ladder looming before her. What had Sara said – it was all about practice? Well there was no time like the present she guessed.

Felicity furtively glanced around the empty space to make sure Oliver hadn't just appeared behind her, like the last time he had entered with all the noise of a ninja and had scared her half to death. Because now that she thought about it, Sara was right. She had to have a go at the salmon ladder, but she was also well aware of Oliver's possessive nature and she didn't want to invoke it by being seen on his equipment.

Satisfied that the coast was clear, Felicity rose from her chair and moved towards the ladder. Thankful that she had chosen to wear pants and ballet flats that night, Felicity looked up at the rungs as she considered how best to approach this.

The first rung didn't seem to be that high, so she grabbed the metal bar and reaching up as high as she could she slotted it into place.

"Well, that's a little higher than I thought." Felicity gulped as she looked down and saw that her feet were now hanging off the ground as she hung onto the metal bar. She was maybe 6 inches off the ground but it was still higher than she was used to.

Felicity tried to shut down her fear of heights and looked up at the next rung. Were the rungs always placed this far apart? The gap to the next slot seemed quite the distance and she didn't know how she was going to manage it.

Felicity closed her eyes as she tried to conjure up a mental image of Oliver doing the ladder. While that wasn't hard, she sure watched him enough so it was easy to see him in her mind's eye as he quickly made his way up the ladder, she had been more focused on a shirtless sweaty Oliver, not really his technique on _how_ to do the salmon ladder. Still, she remembered that there had been a lot of swinging in his movement. Maybe that was the trick then – swinging.

"Duh." Felicity chastised herself as she started moving her body. Of course momentum was the trick to this exercise, she wasn't going to get anywhere if she stayed stationary. Felicity pushed herself back and forth until she had quite a good swing happening but she couldn't bring herself to jump up to the next rung. There was no way she was giving up her safe hold on this rung so she could _maybe_ reach the next one. She knew what would happen. She would try to jump for the next slot, completely miss it and fall on her butt as she hit the unforgiving ground.

As Felicity decided that she had no choice but to give up, she heard the door at the top of the stairs slam shut. Hearing the heavy footsteps descend to the basement quickly, she knows that she only has a matter of seconds before Oliver sees her hanging on his salmon ladder. And that wouldn't be good, despite what Sara said. She doesn't want to have to deal with an irrational Oliver right now.

Felicity lets go of the bar she was hanging on to and drops quickly to the ground. But she hasn't quite mastered the technique of landing on hard concrete floor and as slight pain shoots through her feet and up her calves, she falls to her knees unable to remain standing. So this is how Oliver finds her as he steps into the open space, her kneeling under the salmon ladder.

"Uh, do I want to know what you're doing over there?" Oliver asks as he walks closer to her.

"Cleaning." Felicity says the first thing that pops into her head. Oliver raises an eyebrow in her direction, obviously not believing her.

"You don't clean."

Felicity shrugged. "First time for everything. And this place is filthy."

"It's a basement." Oliver pointed out. "It's supposed to be a little dirty."

"Is this just 'a little dirty'?" Felicity swiped a finger over the concrete in front of her, holding up evidence of the dust that coated the place.

"We have to work here you know." Felicity nodded at him, pulling herself from the floor and brushing past him on the way back to her desk.

* * *

"You can do this."

Felicity gave herself a pep talk as she looked up at the next rung of the salmon ladder. About 15 minutes ago, Felicity had gotten the urge to try the salmon ladder again. For the past few weeks, both Dig and Sara had been training with Felicity and she had gained quite a bit of muscle in her upper body. They had been sparring with her so she could defend herself and all of the punching, flipping and tensing had helped her develop her strength.

So this time she had come prepared to do a work out. She knew Oliver wouldn't be there given that Sara had taken him with her to yet another family dinner, so it was just her and Dig with Roy working upstairs. Earlier she had gotten changed into her work out gear and after some other exercising, had made the decision to try the salmon ladder and surprisingly had found herself making her way up it. Dig had let her know he was impressed with her improvement, before he finished up his own work out and left for the bathroom.

But for all of her new found strength, she had only managed to get about half way up the salmon ladder before she felt her arms start to give out. She glanced up again to see where she is expected to go, but can see her arms are beginning to shake with the strain of holding onto the metal bar.

"Well this isn't happening." Felicity sighs as she realises she won't be going any higher today. Disappointed, Felicity looked down as she prepared to drop off the salmon ladder. Her stomach churned as she finally realised how far she had come up the ladder, and the ground seemed a long way down.

"Dig!" Felicity screeched. Dig immediately came running out from the back, his eyes searching frantically around the basement looking for the threat. He noticeably calmed when he saw there was no one there but Felicity.

"Felicity, I thought you were in trouble." Dig admonished as he walked over to the salmon ladder where she was hanging.

"I _am_ in trouble." Felicity pointed out to him, wriggling her body for emphasis of her position. Dig laughed.

"Felicity, I can still touch your feet. You're not that high up." Dig reached up and grabbed her foot in demonstration. Felicity yanked it away from his grasp.

"Easy for you to say, Mr Army Man. In case you forgot, I don't like heights so just get me down already."

Dig conceded and helped Felicity down from the salmon ladder. He easily caught her as she let go of her hold and dropped down to his height.

"What would you have done if I wasn't here?"

Felicity shrugged. "Probably stayed up there until someone found me. Or not, considering I'm pretty sure my arms were about to give way and I would have just fallen off."

Felicity held out her arms to show Dig how much they were shaking from the exertion she had just put them through.

"Why didn't you just come down before you got stuck up there?"

"We just went through this Dig. I couldn't get down."

"Well maybe you shouldn't use it then." Dig suggested.

"Use what?" They both spun around at the sound of Oliver's voice at the top of the stairs.

"Nothing." Felicity stammered, throwing her arms behind her back to hide their shaking from Oliver.

* * *

"Hell yeah."

Felicity cheered to herself as she found herself closer to the top of the ladder than she was to the ground. With a bit more training from Dig, since he was getting sick of finding her hanging half way up the salmon ladder and unable to get down without his assistance, Felicity was now confident that she was strong enough to defeat the ladder once and for all.

It was another quiet night on the Arrow front and Oliver had given everyone the night off. Oliver was spending time with Thea, and by default Roy, Sara was out with Laurel and Dig was gone for the weekend. And since Felicity did not seem to have a life outside of Oliver Queen, she had chosen to spend her night in the basement. But it wasn't like she was filling her time with work on the computers. No, instead she was taking the opportunity to do some working out, which now included her attempts at the salmon ladder.

As Felicity went to make her move to move up a rung on the ladder, she froze in place as she heard the alarm panel outside the back door initiate. Which meant that someone had just entered the code and was about to enter the basement.

"Get a grip Felicity." She mumbled to herself as she rationalised that it had to be one of her friends, since no one else knew the code. Felicity went back to judging the strength and power she would need to close the distance of the next gap. While she was doing that, she heard the door open and footsteps make their way through the basement.

Felicity once again froze as she didn't recognise the footsteps that were coming near her. She felt her fear rise as she realised that she may be in danger. Anyone who was meant to be in this basement had plans tonight and she wasn't expecting anyone to come by. Felicity knew the smart thing to do would be to drop from the ladder and hide, but she couldn't get her fingers to do what her brain was asking and she remained hanging from the metal bar as she watched the person round the corner.

"Roy!" Felicity exclaimed on a breath, as she let the tension drain from her body.

"Felicity?" Roy asked, shocked to see the IT girl hanging from the salmon ladder.

"What are you doing here?" They both asked at the same time.

"Nuh uh, I wasn't the one who had plans tonight. I'm allowed to be here." Felicity justified as she finally dropped from the ladder.

"So am I." Roy argued, though it sounded more like a question.

Felicity rolled her eyes. "I'm not saying you're not. You're just not _meant_ to be here. Weren't you doing something with Oliver and Thea?"

"Yeah, but that was before Oliver got all territorial and started glaring at me every time I opened my mouth. A guy can only take so much of the protective big brother routine, you know?"

"You mean he doesn't just save his glare for when he's under the hood?" Felicity answered sarcastically, turning back to her desk where she left her towel and water.

"So you thought you would pass the time down here?"

Roy shrugged. "I knew Oliver wouldn't be coming here tonight and it would give me something to do."

"Fair enough. Well, it's all yours." Felicity waved to the work out equipment as she grabbed her stuff and left.

* * *

"I made it!"

Felicity felt so proud of herself when she made it to the top of the salmon ladder. After weeks of training, and putting herself through so much hard work and exhaustion she was strong enough to pull herself all the way up to the top of this stupid piece of equipment.

Since Oliver had revealed his secret to her, she had known about this grueling workout but never though that she would be able to do it. As she trained though, she found herself glaring at the ladder as it sat there in front of her and taunted her with its impossibility. But not anymore. Tonight she had successfully managed to make her way to the top.

Now the question was, how was she going to get down? When Oliver used the ladder and made his way to the top, every damn time mind you, he had just jumped down like it was nothing. Sure, even she had been known to jump down but not when she was this close to the top. She was practically at the ceiling and an almost 20 foot drop did not sound appealing right now.

"Crap." Felicity knew she was stuck, and this time there would be no Dig to help her down. Oliver had something to take care of at Queen Consolidated so his trusty black driver had taken him there. They had only left an hour ago and knowing Oliver's ability to be CEO, or lack of, they could be a while. So Felicity was pleasantly surprised when she heard the door at the top of the stairs disengage and her two favourite boys coming down.

"I told you I had it under control." Felicity heard Oliver whine like a two year old.

"You did not have it under control." Dig disagreed. "First you were staring blankly at the screen clearly having no idea what the report said, and then you were hitting all the keys on the keyboard so hard I thought you might break something."

"Wait, what?" Felicity screeched.

The boys automatically looked over at Felicity's desk assuming that's where her voice had come from.

"Yoo hoo. Up here." Felicity sang and Oliver and Dig turned in unison to see Felicity hanging at the top of the salmon ladder.

"What did you do?" Felicity admonished Oliver when she saw she had their attention.

"Don't worry he didn't _do_ anything. And that's exactly the problem, but I stopped him before he could do any damage." Dig answered for him. "But you're going to have to go with him to fix whatever problem the company is having. He clearly can't do it by himself."

Oliver grinned as he nodded in agreement.

"Yeah yeah, we all know you'd be lost without me." Felicity stated easily. "But as you can see, I'm a little indisposed right now."

"So jump." Oliver shrugged like it was no big deal.

"Right, like it's that easy."

"Felicity, you've done it before." Dig pointed out.

"Yeah when I was only about half this high off the ground Dig."

"I think you've been a bit higher than that."

"Not the point." Felicity said exasperated. "Just get me down."

"Felicity the only way down is to jump. It's only a small drop, you'll be fine." Oliver tried to reassure her.

"Small drop?" Felicity squeaked. "Oliver do you see how high up I am right now?"

"Yes and I must say I'm impressed. You were clearly strong enough to get to the top, a little fall isn't going to hurt you."

"I disagree." Felicity grumbled, looking down at the floor below her. The very hard concrete floor.

"Trust me?" Oliver was now standing at the bottom of the ladder as Felicity she hung at the top.

"Ugh!" Felicity groaned as she looked away from his baby blues staring up at her.

"You know I trust you with my life. But there is no way that I'm dropping from this ladder."

"Well maybe you should have thought about that before going up there which gives me a really nice view of your butt in those tight pants."

"What?!" Felicity shrieked letting go of the metal bar, causing her to fall into Oliver's waiting arms. Dig chuckled at Oliver's tactic and Felicity's expected reaction.

Felicity immediately jumped out of Oliver's arms, ignoring his grinning face as hers burned bright red. She smacked him in the shoulder.

"You were so not looking at my butt." Felicity declared since she figured he had just said that to get her to fall from the ladder.

"Maybe a little bit." Oliver held up his fingers about an inch apart as called out after her while she scampered to the back to get changed.

* * *

"Yes Thea. No Thea. Bye Thea."

Felicity could hear Oliver on the phone as he made his way down the stairs into the basement. She had just made it to the top of the salmon ladder when he appeared, hanging up his phone in the process.

"Again?" he asks her, surprised to find her at the top of the ladder. Her using the salmon ladder seemed to becoming a regular occurrence lately, but he didn't think that was a bad thing.

Felicity shrugged, well as much as she could give her arms were extended so she could hang onto the bar. "It relaxes me."

'It relaxes you?" Oliver asked in disbelief. "Felicity I don't think it's meant to be _relaxing_."

"I know. But I like it."

"And you obviously like me looking at your butt, because you know that's what's happening right now." Oliver smirked.

"Oliver you're standing in front of me. You can't see my butt from that angle."

"I have a good imagination. And what I can see isn't so bad either."

Felicity rolled her eyes. "Well I hope you enjoyed the show because it's not lasting much longer."

"I think it's going to last as long as I leave you up there. You still haven't mastered the getting down part." Oliver said confidently.

Oliver looked on in shock as Felicity dropped gracefully to the floor, falling to one knee to absorb the impact.

"Sorry to disappoint." Felicity smirked at him as she goes to have a shower.

**AN: **I know nothing about the salmon ladder – never even seen one. So don't hurt me if I got some details wrong!


End file.
